Norman F. Santos

The Waiting Room - Poem by Norman F. Santos

As I lay, pensively, dyingBeneath the seething graze of the sun, In a metaphorical metamorphism, I found myself, in films, meanderingLike a white eccentric and fictional lionDashing through the endless pitchHollowness of an ornate forestThe insipid beast teemed with fearAnd not of valiance, as in the labelIn this pocket of a gyratory cul-de-sacThe ghosts, glacial and searing, Runs along with my buoyant feetTheir wails struck the barricadesOf the looming myrtle treesAnd an echolalia came to lifeIn its corporeal form, a wintryPang that gnawed upon my chestAnd I ran faster, like a frenzied fiendTill I saw an opalescent strangerWith a lamp on his rooted feetAnd a knowing smile to trustHis ghastly fingers piercedTo an escape door beneathA virulent garden of mushroomsWithout hesitations, I advancedAnd he was left there unaccompaniedWith a broken and ghastly smileA wave of oppressive light surgesIn the starkness of the brand new alleysI can almost stare back at their eyesBut in this estrangement, I fumbledSevering the savvy of recuperationNausea ubiquitously hangedOn a noose for two headsA tinge of wonder rested on the otherWhy did the spectral strangerNever went for the escape door? Perhaps he already knewThe drudgery in leisurely vyingTo sprawl your qualms and quandariesInside a waiting room, half-alive.